Paige's New Toy

When I was pregnant with Paige, some friends of ours passed along a little push/riding toy for her to use. I thought it would be a while before she used it. But Daniel got it out yesterday and she loved it!

She mostly chewed on it.

I had to include this picture. Her face is hilarious!!!! 

And then this face......I have a feeling we'll see it again. 

But let's end on a cute note...

She looks so tubby here, I love it!! I just can't resist those chubby cheeks!!

We're headed to Hong Kong in about an hour. We are going for visa stuff, and i'm taking advantage of an english speaker cutting my hair, woo hoo!

love

laura

Tuesday Conversations

After lunch today, Paige and I went to the market just a few blocks away from our house. It's where I buy most of our fruits and vegetables. I had just finished buying an orange from a vendor and we got to talking about kids. All of a sudden a man walks up to me, and yells "For-eign-er!!!" (in english). I was like ummm, yep, that's me.

After making yummy broccoli cheese soup for dinner (with bread bowls!) we took Paige outside to the playground that is in our apartment complex. I sat on the swing and let Paige watch the other kids playing. (i need to take a pic of this swing, it has death written all over it.) 

In true Paige fashion, she has all the local kids around her, talking about how cute she is. I ended up talking with a few of the little girls, and I thought the conversation was so interesting. 

They asked if Paige's eyes would be green when she got older. (they are blue now). 

They asked me if I was a foreigner or local. They must've been unsure because of how perfectly I speak the language (hahahahhahh!). I was honored though, and told them I was a foreigner.

Then they told me I had gray hair. Which is a little crazy because as far I can tell, I don't even have one strand of it yet. 

They thought I was about 20 years old. Bless them. I should've bought them all ice cream. 

They asked about my nose ring, and why it looked like I had a nail in my nose. I definitely didn't have the language ability to explain that one!

They asked how many friends we had here. But the way they asked it, made the assumption that it was less than 10. I told them we have a few more than 10 friends.

And speaking of convo's with locals.....we were at a restaurant with my in-laws a few weeks ago, and the waitresses were ooohing and aaahing over Paige. One lady and I got to talking and she asked if I raised her myself. I said that I did. Then she asked if I cooked. I told her I did. She could not believe that I raised a child and cooked. She said I should only be doing one or the other. I joked with her that this is a great idea, and I would take care of Paige and tell my husband to cook from now on. At least I hope she knew I was kidding. 

That was our Tuesday! What are you doing today?!

love

laura

Weekend Rewind-How to save a life

I would say we had a pretty low key weekend up until this afternoon. Thursday-Saturday was a holiday here. But it wasn't a big one, and it has been raining almost everyday, so it doesn't feel like a holiday.

Friday, we ran errands and I made Poppyseed chicken. I haven't made it in a while because I ran out of poppyseeds. No poppyseeds presents a challenge in making poppyseed chicken.But Daniel's mom brought me some when they came last week, so it only makes sense to use them.

(her pj's say Baby Cakes, is that not the most adorable thing ever?)

Friday night Paige was up till almost 1am, crying and fussing in her crib because she kept trying to crawl. She's getting so close, so every night when we goes to bed she fusses for a bit and tries to crawl. So Saturday morning came a little too quickly.

Saturday morning we drank coffee, and I RELISHED it. Mainly because we had been out of coffee creamer for 3 days and I very quickly realized I am addicted to coffee creamer and don't do well without it. I make my own creamer, and it requires sweetened condensed milk. We were out of SCM until Friday. You see the dilemma yes? 

We ate leftovers for dinner, then decided to live on the edge of the wild side and go get ice cream/coffee (i got ice cream, Daniel got coffee). There is a touristy place about a 20 minute walk from our house that has a Dairy Queen (not like america, so don't get too excited) and a Starbucks. It was a holiday. Paige draws attention wherever we go. People love the foreign baby. But we decided to live it up and it wasn't too bad. Paige loves the attention. My DQ chocolate blizzard was the best I've ever had here. Win-win.

This afternoon we were sitting in the living room and Paige was napping. I looked out the window and saw smoke. That seemed odd. So I opened the window and saw that the apartment directly below us had smoke coming out of their open window. I yelled several times and didn't get a response. It smelled pretty bad.

Daniel went down to see if someone was home, but couldn't get anyone to answer the door. He called our apartment office and they very nervously said they would get someone to check on it. 

I started freaking out. It was a lot of smoke. I kept walking around on our floor to see if I could feel any heat coming through. 

I went downstairs to wait for the security guy to see if we needed to evacuate. He pounded on the door and yelled but no one responded. Then the smoke started coming out thru the door. It smelled SO bad.

After several minutes, a middle-aged man answered the door in the pj's. He acted like everything was normal. Come to find out, he had been cooking something on the stove and had fallen asleep. I followed the security guy into the apartment to confirm that everything was okay and no evac was needed. The entire apartment was filled with so much smoke i could barely even see. 

When I got back home my clothes and hair wreaked of smoke. gross.  

Not sure if this is a cultural thing, but I honestly expected a thank you or something from our neighbor. You know, for saving his life and all. He just seemed to laugh it off, like nbd. I don't need a thank you card, but general acknowledgement would make me feel better. Buy me a Coke, give me a high-five, I'm not asking for a lot here. 

Anyways...that was our weekend.

This week we'll do a little traveling, I'll have class, and I'll probably do several loads of laundry.

Happy Sunday!

love

laura

Paige at 7 Months

Thursday, Paige turned 7 months! She is now officially closer to being a 1 year old than a little baby. I have a hard time dealing with the fact she's not an infant anymore and is only going to keep getting bigger. 

Paige is definitely a water baby. She loves bath time and going to the pool. I can't wait to show her the ocean! I think she will love it!

7 Month Stats:

(i'm guessing on these since we don't have a check up this month)

Weight: About 16.5 pounds or 7.5 kilos

Length: 26-27 inches?

Size Diaper: Pampers Medium at night, Fuzzibunz Medium cloth and Bumgenius One size cloth

Size Clothes: 6-9 months. She just wore her first 9 month sleeper last night

Sleep: She sleeps from about 7:30-7 am. Most mornings she wakes up before 7. Sometimes she'll sleep till 7:30. Her naps are 9-11 and about 1:15-3:15. She sometimes take a catnap at 5, but I'm pretty sure she's about done with those. 

Feedings: Nurses at 7, 11, 3, and 7. The past several days she's been eating closer to 11:30 and 3:30. After the 11 feed, she gets a new food and about 1 Tbs cereal. After the 3 feeding, she gets 1-2 ounces of solid food, with about 2 Tbs cereal. 

This month she had: green beans, prunes, pears, peas, peaches, and carrots. So seemed to really like her pears. She makes faces with almost everything else, except cereal. But she still opens really wide to eat anything we give her. I feel like i'm running out of new foods to give her-mostly because of what is available in the markets right now. We are going to Hong Kong this week for visa stuff, and can get cheap avocados. I want to bring some back for her to try. 

We've given her a sippy cup a few times with water to get her used to it, but so far she hasn't figured that out yet. 

Daniel's parents were here for about 11 days. Paige was a little off schedule with missing naps, and one night was a little fussy. Paige is not a cuddler; those moments are rare. Which is why I love this picture with Sherry so much!

Paige LOVES walking around with someone holding her hands. She loves to stand and hold onto something by herself too. All she wants to do is stand, and I'm wondering if we're going to skip crawling all together.

How adorable is this hoody outfit??? I could die of the cuteness. 

Look Mom, one hand!

Speaking of crawling.....Paige can get on her hands and knees and rock, but hasn't figured out yet how to move. She gets SO mad-you can tell she really wants to be mobile.

The past several nights Paige will keep trying to crawl in her crib. Last night she was up from 10-12:30 trying and fussing about it. It was as fun as it sounds.

This is my new favorite picture. She blows me away with how beautiful she is. 

It's getting to be almost impossible to get a good picture these days. She is always on the move.

Paige smiles so much, but she never wants to do it for the camera. When I was taking her 7 month pictures I was having the hardest time to get her to smile. Our local friend came over shortly after and Paige couldn't stop smiling. She LOVES the locals here! She always smiles and is super happy to see them, especially when they give her attention.

I think this is the only bow that fits her now. I need to get on that and get some bigger ones. 

Paige loves to play on our bed. We have a large wall hanging from India above our bed. And she loves to look at it and "talk" to it.

• Paige is sitting up all the time now without any help. She can go from a sitting position to a crawling position, and rolls all over the place. She will chew on anything she can get her hands on. 

• She loves strangers! She will smile at anyone she doesn't know and will let anyone hold her. 

• She can sit in a highchair now, which is so nice when we go out to eat. 

• Paige plays really good by herself, which is something i'm really thankful for. We try to do room time or alone playtime once a day for about 15 minutes. 

• Paige's favorite song is Call Me Maybe. If she's getting fussy in the evening, I play it for her. 

I'm pretty sure these next several months are going to be full of change and new things for Paige! We love her so much and just can't get enough hugs and kisses from our little girl!

That's our Paigers at 7 months!

love

laura

Traveling Grandparents

Daniel's parents arrived about 10 days ago, and even though we haven't done a lot, it feels like we have. For some reason, we are all just exhausted. Last week, we took a 2 hour train ride to another city for a few days. It was Paige's first train ride!

She missed a lot of naps, but she did so good!

This girl lives for attention, and she gets plenty of it over here. No matter where we go, locals flock to Paige and ooh and ahh over her. She eats it up!

She is also loving Grandma and Grandpa!

Daniel and I got a much needed (and appreciated!) date night last night. We went to our fave italian restaurant here, then Starbucks. We had a great time and loved taking our time to just eat.

I have to give a shout out about this shirt from the GAP. I SPLURGED this past week and I l.o.v.e it!!

I tried to get Daniel to wear polka dots to match us, but he just wouldn't have it.

One of my absolute FAVE things to do, is to watch TV in bed at a hotel. It is my guilty pleasure and it is the most relaxing thing ever. The joy I get from laying in a hotel bed watching TV. Seriously. We watch movies at our house, but not regular TV. So it's a huge treat to watch TV in english. We let Paige watch some too. She was pretty excited. I love that she's holding Daniel's hand here.

Apparently she's a fan of TV. 

This is how we travel here. We joke that Paige stops traffic, because all the drivers going by stop and crane their neck to look at her. 

Nothing like being on top of the world!

How adorable is she???

I took Sherry for her first foot massage and hair wash here. Getting your hair washed is pretty normal here, and it's such a cheap luxury. I accidentally asked them to massage my hair instead of my head, but quickly corrected myself. 

Cute little goober!

I'll do her 7 month post this thursday!

love

laura

Our life

So I know I've been bad about blogging.

And honestly I still blame Blogger and their dumb photo size rules. If I could just upload my pics and blog the world would be a much simpler place.

Anyways....

So recently..... I made eggplant parmesan a few weeks ago. It came out pretty good. I baked the eggplant, but next time I might try frying it first so it doesn't get soggy.

I also made Skinnytaste's Sana Fe chicken. This usually makes 2 meals for us, so the first time I put it over rice, then we use the leftovers for quesadillas. It's yummy.

Here is a rare picture of me and Daniel. 

We have a Burger King in our city now. Honestly i was very excited when I first heard. However...the only thing I really go to BK for is their Original Chicken sandwich. guess what they don't have on the menu??

I made baby food today. I stuck the with "P's"-pears, peas, and pumpkin. She will get peas tomorrow for the first time. I'm alternating veggies and fruits as she gets introduced to a new food. 

I'm not really running. I would like to say it's because it's been raining every day here. That's true, but I'm honestly just not motivated. I have lost all my pregnancy weight, so I'm happy about that. My body will never really look the way it did before, but that's okay. i'm glad I'm back to a healthy weight. 

Daniels' parents get here late tomorrow night and are staying about 11 days. I'm super excited and so is Paige. Grandparents Day is this Sunday, so i'm happy they will be here to celebrate. We'll do a little traveling with them next week. 

My dad's birthday is today! (your tomorrow) Happy Birthday DAD!!!!!!

Here he is running his first race-an15K on his birthday in 2009! My sister and I ran it too, we had so much fun!

Happy Weekend!

love

laura